"Terrifying blazes are the new normal in the West, where a mix of climate change and Tea Party politics has put an entire region at risk."

"It was the sound of her neighbors' propane tanks exploding that convinced Nancy Myers she had run out of time. Twenty minutes earlier, the 57-year-old potter had been standing with some friends on a rock-strewn hillside above the village of Yarnell, Arizona, on a hot Sunday afternoon, watching the red coil of flames unspool in the distance, certain that everything was going to be OK – despite the 'prepare to evacuate' order issued by the county sheriff's office earlier that day. 'Then the storm came down the mountains,' she remembers. 'The wind shifted and it came straight into town. There was ash and smoke everywhere and big old flames. I went into panic mode.'"